The Doctor's Choice
by fishiee
Summary: An unknown enemy has devised a plan to take down the Doctor, by kidnapping all the people he loved, throughout time and a few different regenerations.


_Well hey there! I've been writing this story for a couple of months now, probably since the 50th Anniversary and I found out a few of my favorite companions and Doctors weren't there. So I came up with an idea where they are. Because of wibbly wobbly timey whimey stuff, I can't say it's really AU. Not yet. I don't know. I think about it and confuse myself. :P _

_I don't own Doctor Who or any of the characters. I'm 99.9% sure there will be no OCs either._

**CHAPTER ONE**

Clara walked in the control room, running her fingers through her still damp hair from a shower. "Doctor, I-" she started, but cut herself off at the sight of him. He leaned against the railing, with a fallen face and eyes glued to his psychic paper.

"Doctor, what is it?" She asked softly, and the Doctor started at the sound of her voice.

He let out a long sigh, running a hand through his light hair. "Clara... I don't know." Her face scrunched up in confusion and she stroded over to see what was so perplexing, his sad eyes following her. She caught his eyes before focusing on his paper.

"Rose Tyler," Clara read words aloud. She bit her lip- she knew this name, but she didn't know who it was. Judging by the Doctor's face, though, this Rose was someone of importance.

His eyebrows drew together at the name and she realized there was a slight tremor in his hands.

"I don't know what this could mean. Rose is... she isn't..," He mumbled, trailing off. He took one more long glance of the scrawl of words, before shoving it back in his coat pocket.

"Doctor?" Clara paused, waiting for her Doctor's eyes to meet hers, "Who is she?"

* * *

It was just him now, really. Just Jack Harkness. All his friends have died or he put their family in danger and wanted nothing to do with him or stuck in another dimension. And one is ignoring all attempts at reaching out, though that might be because he's busy time traveling and saving the universe, but doesn't he ever think about Jack? It's been years since he last saw the Doctor and everyone was together, including Rose in this dimenson and Donna with her memories, for one last huzzah, but it's not like he's getting any older either...

He wasn't going to get anyone else involved this time, he decided. There could be Torchwoods elsewhere, but just him in this Cardiff base. This base is cursed and he won't let anyone else get involved and die because of him. Jack won't even cease away and die- no, he'll always have the deaths of his friends and the distrusts of the ones alive. That's his part of the curse, he figures, so he's going to live with that here, alone, and not drag anyone else down with him.

Jack flipped on the light and found it was exactly as it was. Over there was Tosh's computer and where Owen stood thinking and where Ianto... _Ianto_... Memories will drive him insane here, but he pushes these thoughts out of his head and goes around turning on all the computers and monitors. The building buzzed alive.

In a way, it calmed him, being back at it. He sat there for a while, checking readings and watching possible extraterrestrial videos. Seconds turned into minutes and minutes into hours. His eyes blurred at the screen and it was around the time he was nodding off that something truly amazing happened.

Readings on the Cardiff rift line went through the roof. Jack typed around on the computer for a moment, before leaning back in his chair. Something big was going down.

He grabbed his coat and pulled it on as he ran. It billowed dramatically behind him. Jack went the bridge, the general area the rift tended to bring things through, but nothing looked out pf place. People drive in their cars and walked hand in hand like one of the biggest things Jack has ever seen didn't happen.

Frozen in place, he tried to calculate what could possibly be happening. Shaking his head, he brought himself back to the base, not as fast as he ran out of there, but with steps dreading what he could possibly find next. Steps of wanting to not know and know at the same time.

Something bad was coming up, Jack could feel it in his bones.

* * *

This Doctor still had a rather young face, though older than the next. His mop of brown hair fell perfectly around his head and his eyes looked like melted chocolate. He stood leaning on a brick wall, on the corner of a street in London. He watched as his old friend sat at a booth in the diner across the street with a dark skinned man. His friend was strong willed, loud, and honest. She was also responsible for the world not going to complete and utter chaos, but Donna can't ever know that.

She flung her head back with laughter and the Doctor smiled, he could almost hear it all the way over here. He remembered it, her laughter. He would never forget Donna Nobles.

The Doctor turned away and walked back to his Tardis. He was just checking up on her, after all. Nothing more. Nothing more _could_ happen, he has to stay away from her for the rest of her life, and she doesn't know why. Or him, for that matter. Not anymore. But she was safe and that's all he was doing, checking up on her.

He suddenly heard his name being called, "Doctor!" His heart skipped a beat, for one tiny second before reality sank in.

It was a voice he'd recognize anywhere, a unique voice belonging to an unique man. However the Doctor's face still lit up without permission with the sight of him.

"I knew you'd come back to see her. I knew it." Jack blurted out first, a little out of breath from his unexpected walk to run, but mainly from the fear he wouldn't catch up, he would lose him again.

The Doctor looked sheepish for a moment. "Just checking up on her. I just... wanted to know if she was happy," He admitted.

"Is she?" Jack asked quietly.

The other man smiled softly. "Yeah. Looks like she's engaged again. Known this bloke longer than a few months though and is quite certain he isn't working for an evil alien spider."

Jack returned the smile, "Good." However it didn't last long. He had almost started to hope he wouldn't see the Doctor again, wouldn't have to face what his computers have been telling him what's going on in the universe.

"Doctor..." He trailed off, trying to find words. Jack speechless didn't happen. He was always charismatic, always knowing the right words. The smile fell of the Doctor's face.

"A couple weeks ago, the Cardiff Riff showed an enormous amount of power. I went to go check it out, but I found nothing. Then other readings... it's like when Rose ripped a hole in the universe to get here to warn you." Jack's voice nearly hesitated over the name of their friend... the Doctor's love.

The Doctor was silent for a moment. "Let's go see what the Tardis has to say."

A smile appeared suddenly on Jack's face. He was going back in it, he was going back with him.

They hurriedly entered the Tardis and Jack felt like he was breathing again for the first time in a long time.

* * *

This man's defining features were his big, floppy ears and short cropped hair. He had light blue eyes and slightly aged skin, older than his next. He was on his 9th regeneration as the Doctor and despite what he had to do to get here, he was rarely alone anymore. A sweet blonde women had taken a place at his side as a friend and slowly stolen his heart. Though he hadn't quite realized that last part yet.

The Doctor was on his rarely alone moments, as Rose Tyler spent a couple of days with her mother. It was a rightly deserved vacation after we spent the past couple days a few thousands (or er, more like 200,000) years in the future on a space station where people got computer implanted in their brains and when they got promotions, they were never to be seen again. They figured it out and all went right again.

Rose and him were always in danger and always saving people, so when she wanted to go home, they went home. He was currently camped out in his Tardis in front of Rose's apartment building when he heard the sudden scratch of static. The Doctor searched around and found the little television on the control console was the source of noise.

White-black static bounced around the screen and the Doctor flicked at it a couple times. Nothing happened, then a silhouette started to form on the screen. Two silhouettes in a white room. A red headed women with a round face pounded on the walls, screaming something, but all the Doctor heard was static. A man stood behind her, trying to touch her- to comfort her. His lips were forming words, but he was a deal more calmer than the girl.

The Doctor slapped the TV a couple times and slowly the voices were morphed clear. The women was screaming _Doctor _and the man was saying _Amy_.

* * *

Rose Tyler currently didn't know where she was, and she was slightly confused _who_ she was. Each time she cracked opened her eyes, she was met with bright lights and burning eyeballs, so she decided to keep them shut. It wasn't helping her answer her questions, though, and she knew she'd have to move past it at some point, but for the moment images ran through her mind.

_An image of two perfect hair Doctors on the beach._

_An image of one of them kissing her, then one leaving her._

_An image of laughing with the new Doctor, the Doctor that wasn't hers, but was._

_The image of the all too human Doctor hooked up to IVs, looking pale and sickly._

_The image of the lifeless Doctor and then Rose on her knees, face down by a grave._

She didn't get the perfect life everyone in the other world had been thinking. She was more alone than ever, then before 10.5 came into her life, and even though there was another addition to her life, a baby sister.

Rose felt alone, all the time, but she did her duty to the Doctor to live. She kept on keeping on and doing all she could to help people, to do all things he would approve of, because Rose knew he wouldn't approve of what she was thinking. What she felt. Alone and depressed and filled with longing, and though she felt so selfish, she couldn't get out of the tangling mess of feelings.

Then one morning the sky cracked open and the last thing Rose saw before she fell into oblivion, and woke up with it too painful to open her eyes, was the Alternate Universe, Pete's World, being burned to a crisp.


End file.
